Yup. Still posting sketches about zombies and zombie slayers. I decided to take a tour the world in search of zombie slayers. My first stop was Africa. Immediately I thought of a Maasai warrior. Somehow I think they’d fare quite well in an undead apocalypse. He may be the first one I render.

Hell if you can deal with the wildlife of the African plains I don’t think a few thousand dopey deadheads would be much of an issue…

Game Name: LegacyGame System: Palladium RPGGenre: Dark FantasyCharacter Name: PikeGame History: The Palladium Roleplaying Game System was my first foray into serious gaming. At the time I was knee-deep in Marvel Super Heroes and was gearing up for my first venture into Vampire: The Masquerade. I was surrounded by other closet gaming geeks therefore I was privy to knowledge not known to the likes of mortal men and women. One tasty bit of information came in the form of the super secret (but no so secret) location of a magical building called The Forbidden Planet.

I know. It just sounds nerdy, right?

It’s hard to describe what this was. It was like a gaming strip club for nerds. You had to ascend a flight of steps lined with Manga posters and collectors item toys before you actually reached the main floor. Flanking the stairway to your right was the Fortress of the Cashier post manned by the Sentry Geek. There he or she (depending on who was stationed at the time) would stand amidst a halo of gaming paraphernalia. From dice to cards to pewter figurines, you name it, the Sentry Geek had it. He was a bastion of worldly wisdom and would wait patiently overlooking the book and toy landscape. The Sentry Geek was a prophet and quite often could answer your questions with only a few words. The shop itself was narrow yet stretched for as far as the eye can see. Books upon books lines the walls. Statues, posters, painting supplies, board games, tv and movie memorabilia and even a life-size Wookie could be found throughout the tight spaced isles. It was a hobbyist’s wet dream and a playground for the gaming elite. It was here that the Palladium Fantasy RPG first caught my eye. I had long wanted to run a Lord of the Rings style game and this system sang to me like a siren on the horizon.

I ended up purchasing a total of 6 books for this particular game over the course of the two years (and still have them to this day).

The Character: Pike was by far my most favorite character to date and that’s saying a lot considering some of the outlandish roles I’ve had over the years. He was my first deviation from the “me look” and persona. He was brash, egotistical, arrogant and could start a fight in an empty room. Some could say I act like that now but back then it was a stretch for a low-key cool cat like myself.

The story took place in a world called Vale. It was a place of magic, mystery, mystical creatures, and kingdoms of men. Pike grew up in a time many thousands of years after the fall of the great Elven kingdoms. It was the Age of Man and not many of his people remained. Those that did went into hiding or had assimilated into human society, adopting their ways and their Gods. He grew up in a small farming community on the outskirts of the Western Empire called Thenyn. The first of three children by way of Varius and Ecstacia, Pike spent the early years of his life following his father’s footsteps. Varius, the town blacksmith, taught his son the trade and had him working in the forge before he could even hold a weapon.

At the age of 12 Pike’s life took an unfortunate turn. Thenyn was attacked by a marauding horde of Midland trolls. They were merciless in their assault and slaughtered everything in sight. His mother and sisters managed to escape the onslaught but his father perished trying to save his fellow villagers. Those that didn’t find death at the end of a blade were taken captive and marched south towards the Old Kingdom Mountains. The trolls were doing the bidding of a ruthless band of mercenaries called the Red Blade. They had established a labor camp at the base of Mount Icera and were importing slaves from neighboring lands to work the quarry. For years he toiled without hope in sight bearing the loss of his family. Salvation came years later in the form of a liberation force from the Western Empire. Those slaves that managed to survive the years of torment were freed and the Red Blade was vanquished. With nothing left for him to go back to, Pike wandered aimlessly with his friend Rodius in the hopes of finding a new life.

Their travels brought them as far south as the Timaro Kingdom. There they found fame and fortune on the wrong side of the law. Life on the road had transformed them into thieves and hustlers, skills perfectly suited for the criminal underworld. By the age of 18 Pike and Rodius’ guild ruled Timaro from the shadows having put down all other major criminal organizations in the city in less than two years. Many bloody guild wars were fought but the Shadow Dancers walked away with an iron fist grasp on all illegal activity that transpired in the region. Life finally had purpose and they were on top of the world. That is until fate intervened in his life once again.

A man with and outstanding gambling debt requested audience with the guild leaders. Such a privilege was rarely ever granted but was approved regardless. To Pike’s surprise his was a face from his past; an old merchant that frequently traded with this village. He shared with him unbelievable news. He told of how his mother and sisters survived the massacre and that he had seen them as recently as the past year. Overwhelmed with emotion he absolved the man of his debt and relinquished control of the cartel to his long time friend. He set forth back to the Western Empire on a journey that would change the face of Vale forever.

It’s Worth Noting:

The character Pike spanned through a complete campaign that lasted about a year and respawned later in a game I ran several years ago.

He was totally a randomly generated character to begin with. I had modified a character generator derived from a Japanese RPG called Mekton that my friend had. That generator has been the basis for whipping up characters in almost every game I’ve run since then. It’s easy enough to customize to suit whichever system. Currently I modified it to work for the Dragon Age RPG. If you’re feeling really geeky (or just plain curious) give it a try. I even left some virtual dice on the Net for you. 😉

I tend to use the name Pike (or variations of it) in video games and MMORGs as well. For example I’ve played under the name Lord Pike the Undying in World 9 of Tribal Wars for years now. Course some of my tribe mates will dispute that since I’ve pretty much gone AWOL since coming up north. ;p

I’ve recently started adapting the first campaign Pike was involved into written work. Nothing serious though. Just a recounting of what went down told from the perspective of someone who knew him in the game. You have to understand that this game was run back in the olden days of ’90 – ’92 when computers where barely starting to break into households. All my documentation was handwritten in a notebook and about couple dozen pieces of paper. Much of what I’m writing comes from memory and those few notes that I kept at the time. I’m trying to retell the story before feeble mind loses it forever. If you’re ever bored and want to kill some time reading pseudo-fan fiction just ask for a copy.

So here I am yet again, sitting at my computer locked in an eternal battle between utter exhaustion and overactive brain activity. My body is telling me to go to sleep but the 8am-sky-at-3am is telling my mind we have to be up for some odd reason. So what does one do when they can’t put two thoughts together for more than five minutes?

Start blogging of course.

I didn’t want to write anything earlier. I was perfectly content with penning my late night business correspondences but that became incredibly tedious. Like a true professional I got distracted and somehow I found myself organizing some directories on one of my work drives. Since getting my rig back into working shape I hadn’t really organized any of my files and folders so of course it was prudent to start doing this at 2 in the morning. I didn’t have any specific goal in mind but I sifted through the clutter anyway. I was taken aback at how old some of the files on this computer were. It was at that point I unearthed a treasure trove of old artwork I had completely forgotten about. I sat there for a half hour reminiscing and revelling in how good (and bad) some of it was.

Since starting my whole crusade to get back to drawing I thought it would be fun to treat my faithful to a humorous and eye-opening trip back into my artistic past…

We travel back first to 1998. This was probably my most active time ever as an artist. It was a banner year for me because not only was it did I meet my beloved wife, but it was my first love affair with Adobe Photoshop. A good friend of mine introduced me to Photoshop 3. He was impressed with what I was doing with just pencil and ink and assured me that this program would revolutionize my entire concept of artwork.

No words have ever been truer.

I had zero knowledge about how to use the program nor did I even have a graphics tablet. That didn’t stop me from grabbing the mouse as soon as it was installed and drawing this little guy. You can see my utterly stylistic use of that rather funky bubble filter. I really don’t know what was on my mind at the time. Okay that’s not true. Obviously I had eggheads, christmas and cigarettes on the brain. I had some sick fascination with those bug-eyed aliens for some reason. It’s a good thing I don’t obsess about stuff like that anymore…

I’ve always loved this picture though. It’s significance is monumental to me. It’ll always remind me of the first time I played around with the program I now use practically every single day for the past decade.

Prior to my transition over to digital artwork, I used to work exclusively with markers, pencil and ink. One of the last things I did, fully inked on paper, was this little work titled Misguided Youth. I made a digital re-imagining of this (that I’ll show another time) a few years ago but it never really captured the feel of this picture.

It fascinates me that I drew this. I’m not trying to toot my own horn or anything (because believe me if I could do that I wouldn’t leave the house ever) but I just really admire the amount of time and effort I used to put into my artwork. I probably spent days working on this one. Sure it has its obvious technical flaws but it just boggles my mind how dedicated I was to the craft.

I think of how I work now and everything is rushed. I draw knowing it’ll go into Photoshop at some point and I can “touch it up”. Back then I didn’t know about digital illustration. I had to bang it out in one shot and try to make as few mistakes as possible. I wish I had that patience still. I guess I’ve just grown complacent and lazy thanks to the power of Ctrl+Z.

One day I’ll regain that level of commitment… but it’s gonna take a pretty big power outage for that to happen.

Go back a little further to 1997 and I was still toiling away with pencils and ink. I was never quite an art pencil type of guy. I had shelled out $125 (which was a lot at the time) for a Rapidograph graphic pen set that had 8 precision sizes and wasn’t about to waste anymore more money on pencils. I figured if I couldn’t sketch with a good ole’ No.2 then I shouldn’t be drawing at all.

Anyway I came across this piece and it shocked me. I studied it for a while and was in awe of how detailed it was. I can even dare say it’s far better than anything I do now. Some disagree but it motivates me nonetheless to get back on point.

I had totally forgotten about this character. Her name was Celeste and she was my vision of a lost Jedi knight. She wasn’t for a game or anything. I just liked Star Wars and was pissed that there weren’t any hot female Jedis so I made one. Although Leia had minor force powers she was in no way a Jedi. I wanted to see a kick ass, lightsaber wielding broad so thanks to having an incredible amount of time on my hands and a vivid imagination I created her.

I loved drawing women. What dude wouldn’t? You ladies out there really don’t realize what remarkable pieces of art you are. No matter what shape or complexion the female form inspired me to draw literally hundreds of pieces of artwork.

Unfortunately for me I have no idea where the paper sketch of it is. The scanned copy is all that I have to remember how good I used to be without technology.

The greatest treasure though came in the form of this little sketch that dates all the way back to 1982. I had no idea I was drawing at that young age. A pretty toxic romp through the teenage years robbed me of a lot of childhood memories so this gem is priceless.

Apparently I was only 7 when I decided to bust out the drawing skills. If I remember anything I know I was all about GI Joe. I had dozens of the toys and would be latched to the television when the cartoon came on. My favorite character was always Stormshadow. If you don’t know your GI Joe, let me tell you that he put the cool in being a ninja. He wore white when every other ninja wore black and his whup ass switch was stuck in the ON position. He was awesome before I ever ascended to those heights so obviously I had to represent by making a rendition of him.

I’m impressed with his arsenal. My Stormshadow is packing tons of weapons on him. I’m not quite certain how effective some of them are. That arm knife looks kinda like a syringe but who cares? It can still take an eye out. He’s even got child-sized nunchucks in case he has to beat down some kids. Most of all you can’t beat the scowl on his face. He’s downright menacing. If you saw that coming you’d be frozen in fear.

I honestly thought I didn’t really start getting into drawing until I was about 10. Finding this has shed some light on a childhood I struggle to remember constantly.

I hope you enjoyed my little trek through Memory Lane. Not many artists are willing to show off their humble beginnings. I’m a firm believer in remembering what got you to where you are today. These, and so many other pictures, help me recall the days when I had absolute passion for the craft.